Photo by Darwin Bell/Flickr The official barbecue grilling season starts tomorrow. Happy summer, folks. Oh, and try not to melt.......

(By Babe Scanlon) When the heat hits San Francisco -- as it did yesterday, and how --two of our favorite street styles appear. One, the woman wearing a sun dress. She looks uncomfortable, and sort of stunned, about her unusual level of public nakedness. It makes sense. We too own sun dresses that sit in our closet, waiting for the one hot day in San Francisco to come out. Yet when that day comes?......

"Static and squat," declares John King on the new residential tower, Soma Grand. And it only gets worse, beautifully so. [SFGate]Have a sumptuous yet refreshing woodchuck, raccoon, or squirrel recipe? Send it to Endless Summer and you could win a "guest blogging post." [Endless Simmer]Fashion on the 5-Fulton dazzles. [Nature abhors a vacuum]President George W. Bush is coming to the Bay Area tomorrow to make a cameo appearance in Milk, or something like that. [Oakland......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Magnetic Fields - "Distortion" - From what we can tell, Magnetic Fields are a huge hit in San Francisco as their two-night stint at Noise Pop 2008 has been sold out since December. (The only way to get tickets is to buy a badge!) Now we haven't had the pleasure to actually preview/review this album, but with a......

-- The Shining (1980): "Honey, I'm home," "Here's Johnny!" etcetera, etcetera, Kubrick, and so forth. (No one wields a baseball bat like Shelley Duvall. So awkward. Also, what ever happened to her?) Screens at midnight (okay, 11:55 p.m.) at the Clay. -- Heat: The Endup gets Warholian on you with a club night dedicated to Andrew's Factory and all the wonderful superstars, nuts, and sex symbols it produced. DJ Donimo and DJ6 pump out......

(If it's "Breaking News" on SFGate, it's good enough for us!) Some fantastic news! It's going to rain! One of the two topics we remotely even care about (the other being our hair) is the possibility of rain. Baptismal, cleansing rain! San Francisco seems to have skipped a harsh Indian Summer, more or less, this year. And that? Tickles us ever so. Now we're in the sweet spot: the chilly weeks between now and......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Dashboard Confessional - The Shade of Poison Trees: Acoustic is back. Chris Carrabba returns to his "roots" with the new release of The Shade of Poison Trees. Basically if you are a long-time Dashboard Confessional fan, then you already know all about this album and probably have already pre-ordered it. As a newer fan of Dashboard Confessional we......

You might think "potatoes" when you hear this street. Something big and red, there you might meet. If figuring out rhyming, city-themed clues is your kind of fun (and why wouldn't it be), lace up your sneakers! It's time for the fifth annual SF City Guides Treasure Hunt! SF City Guides are, of course, the folks who bring you those awesome themed walking tours of San Francisco, like Bawdy and Naughty, about Barbary Coast prostitutes,......

Seeing as how the Summer of Love was the single most important event in the history of time and space, we thought it would be delightful of us to review a smattering of Summer of Love anniversary reviews for you. In no particular order, discover the music, elderly genitalia, and abundance of ATMs you missed. -- Beyond Chron: Goes into detail about that guy who sang that anti-Vietnam war song prefaced by a spelling lesson......

Photos of the 40th annivesary of the summer of love...

Some local PBS affiliate stations will be re-airing two San Francisco-centric episodes of "American Experience" this weekend. The first, and best, is Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. Through interviews with former members and survivors of the Jim Jones cult, along with loads of archival footage, you get an eerie portrait of a good idea gone bad. In hindsight, it's hard to imagine how anyone could have fallen under the spell of......

-- Scott McCloud: Experimental and wildly popular comic artist and novelist (Making Comics) speaks tonight at "Evolution of the American Comic Book". Rory Root (owner, Comic Relief) and Andrew Farago (curator, Cartoon Art Museum) also speak. Starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Commonwealth Club, 595 Market; $7-$20. -- End of Summer Slam Jam for Teens: Are there words prettier than "back to school"? Maybe. But when we start seeing back-to-school commercials and such, we......

Hey Giants fans, hate the Dodgers? Like, really, really, really hate the Dodgers? Wanna have some snarky yet juvenile fun at their expense? Hell, what else can you do considering they're in first place (or, well, were) and have won eleven straight at the Phonebooth. Do we have a contest for you! ...

-- Marcus Shelby Trio and Faye Carol (and those nails!): Popular, local jazz and blues greats perform two sets together at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m at Jazz at Pearl's, 256 Columbus; $10-$15. -- "The Clap!": Whoa Nellies' Leigh Crowe and Peter Fogel perform at 11 p.m. tonight at this disco rarities club featuring Gary Fembot, Der Blaue Reiter, and Slings spinning vogueing classics, new wave hits, '60s soul, and new electronic. Music starts......

Hey, wanna see The Ten? No, not the LA freeway, a movie of ten short films illustrating each of the Ten Commandments, featuring such of-the-moment actors as Jessica Alba, Paul Rudd (yay!), Adam Brody (pictured above; we have no idea what commandment it illustrates but the picture's funny), and The Daily Show's Rob Corddry, among many, many others, and directed by the guy who directed Wet Hot American Summer. Well, you can if you......

It was a deadly weekend to be famous, that’s for sure. As one commenter already pointed out today, famous people tend to die in threes: Bill Walsh, Tom Snyder, and of course, ABC 13’s Marvin Zindler from Houston, who -- while still tied-up with breathing tubes, in his hospital bed, and very pissed off at 24-Hour Fitness -- gave and gave until the very end. But another one squeaked in there among those three: Ingmar......

It has been documented, in Nature no less, that listening to Mozart makes you smarter. Only for spatial reasoning, though. Only for 15mn afterwards. And the results got disputed later. Damn. And even worst, the same effect was observed with music from, hold on one second while we regain our composure, Yanni. Yanni!...

-- Sweetie and Love is Chemicals (image to the left): Hear rock and melodic ditties in the Mission with these two “sugary, pop” outfits. Show starts at 10 p.m. at the Knockout, 3223 Mission; $10 -- Bad Boys of Summer: It's like Oz meets Field of Dreams, or something like that. Catch this documentary about San Quentin convicts playing baseball. Film starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Screening......

It's the magic of music! The San Francisco Symphony comes back to Dolores Park for the fifth consecutive year for a free performance as part of their Summer In The City program. This year, it's kind of Spanish-themed, with Gershwin's Cuban Overture, composer Manuel de Falla's Three Cornered Hat, possibly some tangos, and Ravel's Bolero. Dum-da-da-da bump-bump, dum-da-da-da bump-bump. Before the performance, there's also going to be the symphony petting zoo, where kids get......

Even though James Gaffigan's only 27 years old, he is running the SF Symphony Summer series. We wanted to know him better, and he granted us an interview:...

The Wall Street Journal ran this piece by Ted Nugent yesterday. If you're at all inclined to check it out, do so soon, because the password protection will kick in at some point. More or less, Nugent uses the 40th anniversary of "The Summer of Love" to rail on against drugs and "stinking hippies."...

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they......

its a big weekend folks! here's where to jumpstart your Pridealicious weekend: Still don't have a date to the tomorrow's Dyke March? Find the perfect lady at Fairy Butch! Speed dating at 8pm, followed by an erotic cabaret & dance party. $10-$20 sliding scale entry fee. at the Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. Head over the Fat City (used to be Studio Z) for Cockblock, queer dance party. Shake it like a polaroid picture......

Last week's winner: the East Bay Express: It's the Summer Guide Issue: how to raise chickens (like LE Leone in the Guardian!), Segway scooter polo (this should be a Metro article), berry picking in Co-Co County and agrotourism (we believe the correct spelling is agritourism). Hey, there's even fruit in the Express' new blotter column! Alameda County Undersheriff busted for using official vehicle in lieu of moving van. (Ed Jew joke omitted.) The firm that......

We know commenter Lilly is dying to know what we thought of Eternal Summer, the Taiwanese movie we were watching this afternoon in the Frameline GLBT film festival! Thanks for asking, Lilly -- though we should clarify that, like all other press outlets, SFist does not guarantee reviews in exchange for passes, nor are we expecting reviews from the readers who win free passes for individual screenings. So this is the first movie we've......

Last week's winner, as picked by SFist Sarah -- the Bay Guardian! Steven T. Jones takes over the opening editorial from Tim Redmond this week. It does not mention Burning Man! Recalls go too far. Club 6 -- still open. Why can't the Chron make money? Now serving at Cafe Gratitude: "I Am....Sued." San Francisco water may be causing rashes. Thank goodness Ed Jew doesn't have to worry about that! (okay, to be fair, we're......

--Gavin Newsom had another Project Homeless Connect event. Reader Elihuh2001 sends along this picture, along with the note that Gavin refused the free coffee provided, in favor of a more corporate flair. --A Pirates of the Caribbean ship sails through Oakland. --San Francisco comic artist Justin Hall gives a superhero lecture at ToonFetish, a conference in Hollywood which SFist MattyMatt assures us is about exactly what it sounds like it's about. --Gay bomb, gay bomb,......

Did you miss us last week? Here are our excuses: we caught a cold, had a birthday, and were up to here with work at our dayjob, for real. We're back now and anxiously awaiting a copy of Or, the Whale's brand new CD Light Poles and Pines to arrive in our mailbox. The few songs we've previewed on their site offer up banjo, steel guitar, and a chorus of male and female vocals......

Last week's winner: the SF Bay Guardian . Cover article: Summer Guide - lots of world music and food festivals in places named "something"-ville. Remembering Jello Biafra and The Clash. Gavin's skimping on the details of his mayoralty to the public - it's the 40th Anniversary of the Summer of Love, Gavin, let the sun shine in on your calendar. Do it for Beth Spotswood. Kimberly Chun wasn't a happy camper at Coachella. Daughters of......

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists....